Interior Department Audit Finds Severe Backlogs and Staffing Gaps in BIA’s Missing and Murdered Unit
A federal audit released by the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Missing and Murdered Unit — created in 2021 to address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) crisis — has been plagued by staffing shortages, case backlogs, and failures to provide victim services since its founding. As of November 2024, the unit had 83 open cases and nearly 400 pending referrals, with no set timeframe for assessing them.
The audit found that nearly half the unit’s posts remained unfilled, and that agents carried unmanageable caseloads. In 8 of 13 cases reviewed, assigned agents never contacted bureau victim specialists — in part because the unit had only two victim specialists nationwide. OIG also found that the remaining staff at the unit had impossible workloads, in part because they are expected to research case referrals while also leading active investigations.
The audit also found that 39% of Missing and Murdered Unit funds were redirected to other BIA law enforcement units. Between 2021 and 2024, more than $15 million was used to purchase new vehicles for BIA law enforcement officers outside of the MMU. This disheartening audit comes as the BIA overall has lost roughly a third of its workforce due to Trump administration staffing cuts.
The BIA stated in its response to the report that it has adopted many of the report’s recommendations and blamed the deficiencies on the Biden administration. Families of missing persons told reporters the impact of the understaffing has had huge consequences: the family of missing Fond du Lac tribal member Peter Martin said the agent assigned to his case departed in early 2025 and was never replaced.
House Judiciary Subcommittee Examines Public Safety and MMIP Crisis in Tribal Communities
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance held a hearing on September 15 titled “Missing and Murdered Indigenous People: Strengthening Public Safety in Tribal Communities.” The hearing examined the disproportionate rates of violent crime facing American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities, with a focus on coordination among tribal, federal, state, and local law enforcement to improve public safety in Indian Country.
Former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer argued that years of disjointed federal MMIP initiatives have failed Native communities and taken resources away from building a coherent system of law enforcement in Native communities. Mr. Lizer emphasized the impact of the failures of this system:
“Broken systems and failed promises have created decades of resource gaps, distrust of programs, and investigative failures, resulting in a general acceptance of the MMIP phenomenon on the Navajo Nation. We can do better. We must do better. No longer should being Navajo mean that going missing, being murdered, or falling victim to exploitative crime is simply the risk of being Navajo and living on our land.”
A compounding factor is that the absence of consistent, mandatory data collection across tribal, federal, state, and local law enforcement — compounded by chronic understaffing of the coordinators and units tasked with gathering it — means there is no reliable baseline against which to measure whether MMIP programs are actually working.
Senate Indian Affairs Committee Hears Testimony on Native Housing Needs and NAHASDA Reauthorization
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held a combined oversight and legislative hearing on September 16 examining housing needs in Native communities and receiving testimony on S. 5354, the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination (NAHASDA) Modernization Act of 2026. The bipartisan bill was introduced by Chairman Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Vice Chairman Brian Schatz (HI) and would reauthorize and update NAHASDA — the foundational federal law governing housing assistance for tribal communities — through 2033. It was last reauthorized in 2008.
Expert witnesses highlighted the need to reduce administrative burdens on tribes, expand access to financing tools such as Section 184 home loans, permanently authorize the Tribal HUD-VASH program for Native veterans experiencing homelessness, and provide long-term funding certainty.
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